Friendship Color Stories

I got a little too excited when I saw Ruth of rock+purl's latest blog post about the friendship bracelet swap she's putting on. I got right up and went to my closet to pull down my box of miscellaneous rarely used craft crap. I rummaged through the fat quarters, pushed aside the beads and found the ziplock bag full of embroidery thread. TONS of it!

Enough for several embroidery and cross stitch pieces, many of which I put down sometime after the first ten stitches and never picked up again. Sharp needles aren't really my thing. I swear I almost lost a pint of blood to my blocking pins between yesterday and today. 

 I quickly realized that I have more color combinations than I could possible make friendship bracelets, so how to choose? After a few minutes of matching them up, then re-matching them, I decided I needed some way to document all of my possibilities. So I got out my camera and proceeded to take way too many pictures. 

I loved the tutorial from Purl Bee, especially how they say to do the ends. When I made these as a kid they usually were a one-time deal where once you tie a knot in in and wear it 'til it dies without ever taking it off. This makes it so I CAN take it off. :)  Now we'll see how many bracelets I actually get around to making. I gave one to the roommate already and am halfway done with one for the swap! Keep on knotting... 

First pattern on Ravelry

I've just uploaded my first pattern!

It's free (as it has only been tested by myself and my mom) and in the process of being edited by the very generous Jenn Wisbeck of Midnightsky Fibers, who already spotted an error and offered to fix it. So if you make it before the errata is posted, make the medium :P

This hat design is one that I came up with years ago, and has sold more FO's than any of my others, so it seemed like the perfect one to be my first published pattern.

Download it Now!

There's a lot more to writing a pattern than I realized before I set out to do it. I have been making hats in a "make it up as you go" fashion for years, but actually writing it down is a whole other animal. Having it all be mathematically and technically correct is so much harder than just designing something that someone wants to make. *light bulb* Maybe this is why they invented tech editors. Before attempting to publish this pattern, I was sure I could do it all myself. Hah. First error found within an hour. Think again Kelly.

The process of submitting designs to publications is still something I have to wrap my head around. Knitty wants a finished pattern, Twist Collective wants a sketch and a swatch. Print magazines seem to have the same divide: one says send us a generous swatch, one says a completed garment. In all cases I know they have people who are experienced in sizing or "grading" or whatever you wanna call it. I obviously can't submit a sweater pattern in S-3X when I can't get the sizing on a hat right...

But people have been telling me, and I have been telling myself a whole bunch... Nike agrees: I need to just do it. It's hard to deal with making mistakes, but it's even harder if you don't get around to making them.